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Without thinking, I grabbed the keys to my truck and headed to the door. Swinging it open and stepping onto the porch, I was startled.
“Where are you going?” Cali asked from the rocking chair on the other side of the bay window.
“Jesus! You scared me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said genuinely. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to the grocery store,” I told him continuing to the stairs.
“Stop!”
I froze.
“Tell me what you need. I’ll go get it.”
I thought about that. What did I need? The only thing I needed was to get away.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get it.”
In a second, he proved to me that he was the football player I knew he was. In the blink of an eye, he was standing in front of me.
“Out of my way,” I told him.
“I can’t let you do that,” he said with humility.
“You can’t stop me. I’m going to the grocery store.”
“And what happens if you go to the grocery store and out of nowhere someone kills you?”
“Cali, you’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m being ridiculous? Someone tried to run you off the road and then tried to kill you with a bomb!” he yelled. “How is me trying to keep you alive being ridiculous?”
“Cali, I’m living in a prison. This is why I left home. And now you’re acting exactly like my father,” I shouted, hoping he would understand.
His face hardened.
“You wanna go home. Is that it? You wanna leave? If you want, I’ll drive you back. But I’m not letting you out of my sight until you’re there. You might hate me, but at least you’ll be alive,” he told me, saying the cruelest thing he could have said.
I stared at him unsure what to do. Was this the end of us? It felt like it. What could I do now?
Chapter 14
Cali
Staring into the eyes of the man I loved, I was sure I was about to lose him. I was willing to live with it. Even if I couldn’t be the man he needed me to be, I was going to keep him alive to find someone else. It would break my heart to see him go, but I couldn’t stand it if something happened to him. I couldn’t.
Looking up at me determining our fate, Hil’s hot body melted. Defeated, he turned around and disappeared into the house. I watched him go. Even if he hadn’t gone to collect his stuff, it felt as though I had lost him.
What did that change? Nothing. It was still my duty to keep him alive, and I would stop at nothing to make sure that happened.
Standing there dumbstruck, the only thing that brought me out of it was a familiar voice.
“What’s going on, Cali?” my eldest brother asked me.
His large hand gripped my shoulder. Never having had a father, the feeling felt weird.
“I think I might have just lost him,” I told Claude, terrified that it was true.
